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Document transcript

Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, 26-28 September 2011

Clare Littleford, Loughborough University

The Conference

Environment 2.0 was the ninth biennial conference organised by the Environmental Psychologydivision of the German Association of Psychology. They took the decisioneight

years ago to turn theconference into an international, English-language conference,and since then it has become the majorEuropean conference on environmental psychology. This yearthe conference took place at EindhovenUniversity of Technology in the Netherlands. Over 350 delegates attended from all over the world

The oral presentations were grouped into 40 themedsessions, with 5 sessions running simultaneously at any one time. Additionallythedelegates cametogether for the keynote speeches and for poster spotlight presentations.

Conference themes and keynote speakers

The conference covered many aspects of environmental psychology, with dominant topicsbeing

energy use behaviour, travel behaviour, behaviour change interventions, andrelationships withnature.Different methodological and theoretical elements from the environmental psychology disciplinewerediscussed in detail, particularly the roles of norms, values and knowledge in individual behaviour.There were a number of symposia during the conference, including ones looking at public perceptionsof and engagement with climate change, the role of values in environmental behaviour, place-personality interactions, satisfaction with different travel modes, and restoration in virtual nature.Thespecial conference theme of Environment 2.0, looking at environmental psychology’s status withregards to technological innovations, also included consideration of the impact and implications oftechnologies such as mobile phones, the internet and virtual reality.

There were four keynote speakers:



Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University,who spoke about the power of

social norms in environmental behaviour change



Wijnand IJsselstein, Associate Professor of Human-Technology Interaction at EindhovenUniversity of Technology, who spoke about media environments as research objects and

tools



Eus van Someren, Professor of IntegratedNeurophysiology at VU University Amsterdam,who spoke about rhythms in light and temperature affecting sleep and performance



Sebastian Bamberg, Professor of Social Psychology and Quantitative Research Methods atthe University of Applied Science, Bielefeld, Germany, who spoke about processes ofvoluntary behavioural change

Sessions I attended

In addition to the keynote speakers, poster spotlight sessions and the session I presented in, I attended

sessions on the following themes:



Psychological

distance and sustainability



Roles of values in environmental behaviour



The role of knowledge in behavioural change



Environmental behaviour and motivation



Barriers to behavioural change



Norms and sustainable behaviour

In these sessions I met seven researchers based at other universities who, like me, are carrying outresearch into energy use by individuals in office settings. I was able to speak to each of them aboutconnections between our research and to exchange contact details.

Originally there were to be four presentations in this session, but one personwithdrew due to illness. The other two presentations given in this session were:



The influence of objective and perceived room climate control on user satisfaction in thecontext of reduced energy consumption in office buildings and schools



Does building energy standard make a difference? Results from post occupancy evaluation inoffice buildings in Germany

As someone had withdrawn at the last minute, we had longer to give ourpresentations than expected–

I had prepared a 12 minute talk but actually spoke for just under 20 minutes, with time for questionsafterwards. I was asked three or four questions, focusing on the kinds of measurements I was takingand possible reasons for

some of the preliminary results I had presented from my PhD study. I wasalso able to discuss links in research and possible future conferences to attend with the otherpresenters and with other people who had attended the session.

Benefits of having attended

Attending the conference and giving the presentation had a number of benefits for me:



Experience of presenting at a conference–

seeing how other people structured their talks anddealt with questions, and then having the opportunity to give my own talk and answerquestions myself, was an invaluable experience that will give me greater insight into theprocess and confidence for future presentations.



Identifying and understanding some of the current debates in environmental psychology,

andaroundindividual energy use,

which will be particularly important when I come to writing upmy thesis and presenting my own research in the context of those debates.



Experience of presenting to an international audience in the discipline of environmentalpsychology–

as Loughborough doesn’t have a psychology department and I do not have aspecialist background in this discipline, it was very useful to have gained feedback on myown research and approach from people who do have this background. This feedback cameinthe form of reviewers’ comments on my presentation proposal, one-to-one discussions withother researchers met during the conference, and the questions and subsequent discussionsheld with people who attended or presented in the session where I presented.



Meeting a number of people carrying out research in a similar area to me–

very little hasbeen published on individual energy consumption behaviour in office buildings, and meetingother people working in this area has enabled me to identify where there are connectionsbetween our work, where my work is unique, and some issues and perspectives that I hadn’tconsidered in detail that can help to shape the way my research develops from now on.



Making connections with high-profile researchers in my area–

already, I have been invited tosubmit an abstract for a symposium in this area at another international conference nextsummer. This is a great opportunity that has come directly from having presented at thisconference, and that, if I am accepted,

will allow me to present my final PhD results to asuitableinternationalaudience.

Attending the conference has been hugely beneficial to me, and something I would not have been ableto do without the support of the MEGS Travel Bursary–